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Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968
: The frustrating thing about this excellent collection is that it has been doggedly put in one wrong category after another. From the packaging and Amazon.com's own review, one might expect Jefferson Airplane-like songs. On the other hand, there are endless references to "garage-punk" until you think you're buying the Ramones.The truth is that this is a collection of rough, badly-recorded 60's pop songs inspired by The British Invasion and LSD. It rocks like a Beatles or Beach Boys outtake. You have to like the originals: Them, The Animals, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones. If you do, these songs will be a delightful addition to your collection. And in a few cases, you will be amazed: "Don't Look Back", by The Remains, is one of many standouts.
I'm 17 years old, and this is some of the best music i've ever heard in my life. This box set contains great alternative rock, punk, garage, heavy metal and pop music from 1965 to 1968. The sound quality is fantastic, and the songs sound so timeless. Each cd in this set is a unique revelation of rareness. Some songs are top 40 hits, and many are just lost NUGGETS that are golden baby. These bands were influenced by The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and Bob Dylan. They have raw power and energy, and maybe some of the artists on this box set could have been right up there with the best, but unfortunatley for some reason they weren't big. It doesn't matter what age you are, this box set has something for the young and old. Get this great set, and you'll be surprised how excellent this music really was! The booklet that comes with this package is beautiful. It has tons of photos,history, and iformation on all of the bands featured in the set. If you've been let down on your recent cd's, this will make up for them all. Grab a neon duck, and shave the moon's face.
All right! After a lot of inferior "Nuggets" releases that watered down the impact of the original 1972 Nuggets album, the original is back! And not only is the entire original album back, it is augmented by another THREE more CDs of great stuff! This is the most awesome collection of '60s garage/psychedelic tunes yet. Essential to anyone's rock collection.
Nuggets is a strange and intoxicating collection of 45s from the mid-1960s. What is a "nugget," exactly? It's difficult to categorize this music. A nugget is neither a hit single (see "Optical Sound," "Voices Green and Purple," and many others) nor a great song (see "It's A-Happening" or "Blues Theme" from the film The Wild Angels). It is not a garage-rock masterpiece (see "Run, Run, Run" by The Third Rail or "Live" by The Merry-Go-Round) or psychedelic detritus (see "Sugar and Spice," "Louie Louie," and many others). It could be any one of these, or a combination thereof, or something else entirely. By marketing Nuggets as "garage-rock" or "psychedelic" singles, the manufacturer and seller sacrifice a sizable portion of the potential audience for this music. (Such was the case with the original Nuggets LP as well.) So this is a weird assortment of tracks, but they are unified in that each features a simple "hook" or distinctive & elemental riff. These songs may not have been hits, but they do take for models the better and more popular records of the time. Also, there is a minimum of "production" on most of these records; the band plays, the tape rolls, and that's that. Just about every track is exceptionally energetic, which makes even the more sugary songs passable in this context. Each of the 4 discs sounds just as good in "random play" mode as in the original Rhino sequence. When you consider that 4 75-minute CDs equals 8 1967 vinyl LPs, and that you can play Nuggets in moderation for months without repeating tracks beyond tolerance, Nuggets turns out to be a rewarding purchase even at the "steep" retail price.... Let's face it, some things are worth great sums of cash, even (or especially) cheaply made music from a lost generation.
These 4CDs prove that most of the *alternative* and *indie rock* of today is crap compared to these originals. 30+ years old and these songs still blow the goatees off of today's alt.mtv and indie rock copycats. Plus, they have an innocence that will never be able to be duplicated. Yes, there are the well-known songs, but I also appreciated other lesser-known tracks like 'Farmer John' by The Premiers (which was covered by Neil & Crazy Horse).
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